


☒fair ☒easy ☑normal

by qwanderer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (y'all know how much I love polyamory negotiations), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-season 7, Season 7 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 14:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15642393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: "It wasn't a picnic for me either, okay, Keith?" Adam pressed his lips together, silencing himself. "I'm sorry. The last thing I wanted was to shut him out. Chase him away."





	☒fair ☒easy ☑normal

**Author's Note:**

> so I guess this is an AU where Adam wasn't on duty the first day of [redacted].

"Hey, Adam," Keith greeted as the pilot approached his table in the near-deserted commissary. 

"Keith." Adam was a little hesitant. "Is it all right if I sit here?" 

Keith was taken aback for a moment, and then replied, "Yeah. Yeah. Of course." 

"So I wanted to say, thanks for saving the world. And thanks for saving Shiro." 

"It's kind of what we do." He left it ambiguous which thanks he was responding to. 

Adam's face did a funny scrunchy thing. 

"Hey, are you okay?" Keith asked. 

"I think Shiro's avoiding me." 

Keith shrugged. "He's avoiding both of us." 

"It's been so long," Adam said. "I'd have thought... whatever he held against me, it wouldn't bother him so much anymore, but that was just wishful thinking, I guess." 

"He's back here, on Earth, at the Garrison," Keith reminded him. "So much has changed, but the things that haven't... it still brings up all that old stuff, you know?" 

"I guess I do. But still. He won't at least come talk to me?" Adam asked, voice slightly plaintive. 

Keith's scowl deepened until he was truly glaring at Adam. 

"Do you know what you did to him? Do you know? I saw him after... after his meeting with the Admiral, after you'd spoken to him. He was working on one of the hoverbikes. You know how he gets when he's thinking something over, something he can't shake." Keith huffed a breath. "Just like now. He avoids people, but in the most Shiro way possible. He finds something to do that doesn't invite conversation. He'll never turn you away but... he wouldn't look at me, wouldn't tell me the details. He hated disappointing people. He hated that he'd disappointed you and he didn't want to disappoint me. But he never has." 

"Really? Never?" Adam's expression was a little skeptical, but also genuinely curious, as well as fond. 

"He's done things that hurt me, he's been manipulated into doing things he never would have chosen, but no, I've never been disappointed in him. That day? He thought he would disappoint me just by telling me that he was sick but that he was going to follow his dream anyway. But seeing Shiro, seeing someone who never gave up on his dreams? That's what I needed most. Especially then." 

"I guess... I thought I needed something else." Adam shook his head. "Someone else. But that never... never really felt right." 

"I don't understand how you could just drop him. Over something like that. It hurt him." 

"It wasn't a picnic for me either, okay, Keith?" Adam pressed his lips together, silencing himself. "I'm sorry. The last thing I wanted was to shut him out. Chase him away." 

"But that's what you did." 

Adam gave a one-shouldered shrug, an acknowledgement. "We both hurt each other a lot, right around then. I guess... I thought it would hurt less if I struck first." 

Keith frowned. "I mean, I was angry too, but only because he'd never told me. I knew how much it meant to him to go to space, to explore, to be the first person to set foot in a new place. I thought you did too." 

Adam sighed. "I didn't. I thought it was about pride. His ego. It felt like, because of his disease, he always had to prove to people that he could do just as much as anyone. That he could do more." 

"That was never it." Keith chuckled darkly. "Maybe for me, it was. At first. Before I heard him talking about the stars." 

"He talked to you about that?" Adam asked. "He didn't really talk to me about it." 

"But you were always with him!" Keith blurted. "Doing all the sims, all the flights...." He bit his lip. "I guess he thought you felt it too. Why he did it. Why he pushed himself. The exhilaration, the ways the stars called to him. He told me, yeah. Whenever I felt like giving up. To keep me from walking away from the Garrison." 

"The Garrison's a job to me. I'm here because it's a job I like, yeah, but I only pushed myself to be close to Takashi." 

"Oh," said Keith, and it came out sounding smaller than he'd meant it to. 

"I guess if I didn't see why he was right up there at the front of the pack," Adam mused, "then I wasn't really all that close to him anyway." 

Keith sighed. "At least he told you about his disease," he said. 

"He couldn't exactly keep it from me. I had to drive him to the hospital once." 

They sat in silence for a moment, contemplating that. 

Adam clenched his hand around his neglected cup. "I just wanted all the time I could have with him. I just wanted him to be _safe_." 

"No one's ever safe," Keith responded immediately. 

Adam scoffed. "Yeah, I get that _now_. I lost the love of my life, you know?" 

"Yeah," Keith agreed, voice distant in his own ears. 

"And having said what I said to him, leaving things there between us, made it so much worse. I regret all of that. I regret not seeing why he needed so badly to go. I look at you both, and...." Adam trailed off, frowning a bit. 

"What?" 

"You both belong up there in the stars. And... you belong with each other." 

Keith's heart lurched in his chest to hear it. He wanted to believe it. But there was a reason Shiro was avoiding him too, when they'd been so close before they returned to Earth and Shiro saw Adam again. 

"Hey," he said, "listen, as someone who really does belong out there - as someone who sometimes hears the word 'home' and thinks of a space whale floating through a time rift, or a secret rebel alien base, or a giant castle-ship that was destroyed to save the universe - yeah, Shiro found a home with us up there. But when he hears the word 'home' he still thinks of Earth. And... I'm pretty sure he still thinks of you." 

Keith couldn't keep the edge of bitterness out of his voice. 

"I'm sorry about that," Adam said. 

"Don't be," Keith said sharply. "He needed that. Someone to come home to. Someone waiting for him. You're good together." 

Adam's expression went pained. "Keith...." 

"You're here, aren't you? And you still love him." 

Adam sighed. "...Yes. I still feel the same way I always did." He turned to look at Keith. "But it isn't how I feel that matters." 

Keith chuckled dryly. "No," he agreed. "I guess it's not either of us that gets to make this call." 

"Well, Takashi sure as hell isn't here to make it." Adam lay a hand on Keith's shoulder, and it was awkward, but warm. "I saw how you looked at us. How you looked at him. Puppy love, I thought. But I was wrong about a lot from back then, and now here you are, still looking at him like he hung the moon, only now he's looking back at you the same way." 

Keith squirmed a little, fighting not to shrug off the weight of that hand. "We kind of only had each other, for a while there," he said. "That doesn't mean he doesn't still love you." 

Adam let out a sharp breath, finally pulling his hand away. "Listen, I doubt I'm much more than a complication looming up out of the past at this point," he said. "And you don't need that. If he doesn't want to talk to me? I should take myself out of the equation, make it easier for everyone." 

"There's no way this is going to be easy." 

"I don't get why you're being so insistent about this. I knew you resented me, before. You were jealous. All I'm saying is, you don't have to be." 

Keith fidgeted with his fork for a long moment, considering that. 

"Listen, I was jealous as fuck, yeah. But Shiro having someone was never what bothered me." 

"I don't understand." 

"The engagement bothered me. Because it was a claim. It meant only you would get to kiss him, for the rest of forever." 

Adam frowned. "I didn't do it as a claim. I know you can't claim someone like that, can't put a leash on them. I just wanted to make sure he knew what he meant to me. I wanted to be his home." 

Keith looked at Adam out of the corner of his eye. "You are." 

"I don't think so," Adam said. 

Keith stood up, stabbing his fork into his forgotten meal. "There's really only one way to know. If he's avoiding us, we have to go and find him." 

"Are you sure?" Adam asked. He hadn't yet moved from his seat. 

"If this goes the way I think it might... I really just want to get it over with. If that's all right with you." 

"Okay," he said, standing slowly. "Let's go." 

* * *

The look in Shiro's eyes when they found him, when he saw that both of them were there and wearing expressions of determination, was one of thinly-veiled panic. 

"Hey, relax," Keith said. "We're not angry or anything. We just want you to talk to us." 

He'd been outside the Green Lion, consulting with Pidge about something or other regarding the traceability of radio transmissions, and when Pidge saw them, she gave a huge fake yawn and said that she ought to be heading off to bed. Shiro and Adam didn't bother responding, but Keith offered her a small smile and a "Night, Pidge." 

He knew that whatever happened, Shiro would still be his family, and he'd lived with that for years. He could do it again. 

Shiro closed his eyes. "I don't know what you want me to say," he said helplessly. 

Keith walked over to Yellow and sat down on his paw, and waved at the others to sit as well. Shiro took Yellow's other front paw. Adam, still visibly less comfortable around the lions, pulled up a crate. 

"This isn't a trick question," Keith said softly. "Just tell us what you're feeling." 

"I wish I knew," Shiro mumbled. 

"That's okay too," Adam offered. "But maybe it'd help to talk through it?" 

Shiro inclined his head. "It's not getting any clearer on its own," he admitted. 

Adam's smile was bittersweet. Keith tried to keep his more encouraging, but had no idea whether he'd succeeded. 

"I don't know what the right thing is here." Shiro lowered his face into his hands, then looked up from between metal fingers. "I... Adam, we were engaged. You were so much of my life. But that was a year ago for me, and four for you, and after what you said I really didn't expect you to be waiting here when I got back. I've been... I've been wanting to have something with Keith. Keith, you've been there for me through so much of this. You've saved me so many times. But I've never made you any promises, except to be there for you, as your family. I made Adam promises." 

"I understand," said Keith. 

Adam said, "I release you from those promises." 

Shiro's expression went pained. "What if I don't want you to?" he asked quietly. 

"Don't." Adam shook his head. "Don't make this decision based on promises that I broke when I pushed you away." 

"I don't know what else... I don't know how else to choose." 

"Shiro, what are you saying?" Keith asked. 

"I'm in love... with both of you." 

Oh. 

Keith's heart swelled, just a little pain shot through the joy of it, and that mostly from how hard that must have been for Shiro to admit. Always ready with a command decision, ready to take one path and let the others fall by the wayside. 

"I know that isn't fair," Shiro continued. 

"Fuck 'fair'," Keith said. "Thank you. For telling us." 

Shiro smiled sadly at Keith. Then he turned to look at Adam. Keith looked too. 

Adam was looking at Keith. 

"I told you my being here wouldn't make things any easier," he said. 

Keith grunted. "While we're at it, let's fuck 'easy' too," he said. "Life isn't easy. Never has been, for me." 

"I thought you wanted to get this over with," Adam protested. "Not draw it out like some kind of torture." 

Shiro and Keith snorted in unison. Keith was remembering the Trials of Marmora, and searching for Shiro out in the endless black. Facing the clone as the semblance of Shiro's personality unraveled. He didn't even want to know what Shiro was remembering. 

Possibly the same fight, from the other side. 

Adam covered his mouth. "Oh, God, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't think." 

"Don't be," said Shiro. "You just put this back in perspective for me." 

"Perspective's a hell of a thing," Keith agreed. "Shiro, how many worlds have we seen where there's no such thing as marriage, or even temporary exclusivity? It didn't seem as weird to me as I would have thought. What about you?" 

"I guess I could say the same," Shiro said. They shared a smile. 

"But Adam proposed to you, and meant it," Keith reminded them both. "If he doesn't want to share, I'd understand. I've always known I'm lucky just to have you as my closest friend." 

"Okay," Shiro said. "But I'd rather have you both." He looked to Adam, almost timidly. 

Adam shook his head, looking a bit bewildered. "The two of you," he said, "you share a whole language, a whole set of experiences, that's just... beyond me. Knowing that I'm the one who's keeping you apart? That's not where I want to be." 

Internally, Keith breathed a sigh of relief. 

"So," said Shiro gently, "I guess the question is, are you in?" 

"I might... have to think about it," said Adam. 

The brightness in Shiro's eyes dimmed fractionally, but he nodded, and said, "Take all the time you need." 

* * *

Adam left, and then Keith and Shiro were alone in the hangar. 

"Is this okay with you?" Keith asked Shiro. 

"Is this okay with me, he asks," Shiro said, rolling his eyes a little. "It's... everything I ever wanted, and everything I never knew to want. Is it okay with _you?_ Being okay with polyamory in the abstract, and being okay with sharing your... uh... boyfriend? They're two different things." 

Keith stood up, and walked over to Shiro, offering him a hand up. "Boyfriend," he said, just enjoying the sound of the word. He didn't think he'd be using it often, but he liked that he could, if he wanted to. 

"Yeah," Shiro confirmed, just as he was stretching to his full height right in front of Keith. 

Keith took a step closer. They hadn't had personal space boundaries with each other since... probably before Kerberos, if they were being honest, but this moment was definitely different. 

"So," said Keith, winding his arms around Shiro's neck, "that means I get to do this now?" Ever so slowly, Keith leaned up, pressing his lips to Shiro's. Shiro's mouth came down to meet his, a brush, then a press, an eager separation and rejoining. A sweet, faint tug of teeth. Then Shiro rested his forehead against Keith's, and they just looked at each other. 

"That is... generally the policy I intend to implement by appinting you to the position," Shiro said. 

Keith snorted. "You're such a dork," he said. "I love you, though." 

Shiro made a happy, slightly lost noise, and his arms encircled Keith's waist. "I love you too," he murmured. 

"Then yes," Keith said. "I've got everything I want, too." 

Shiro smiled, wide and soft. 

* * *

Public displays of affection weren't really in Keith's nature - at least, outside of that lack of personal space that he and Shiro already shared - so probably no one else could tell that their status had changed beyond Shiro no longer avoiding Keith. But their smiles for each other were a little brighter, their nudges slightly more frequent. 

Adam joined the Paladins at meals for the next few days, and at first he looked as if he was testing the waters, and then waiting to be boiled alive. But he seemed to regain his rapport with Matt fairly quickly, and become comfortable with the other paladins as well. If he watched Keith and Shiro, it was subtle. 

One day, he sat next to Shiro as if it was the most normal thing in the world - at one point it had been, Keith remembered vividly - and slung an arm around his waist. They both froze for a moment, and then Adam relaxed into it, and then Shiro let out a breath, and their conversation continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. 

As for Keith, well. He slung an arm companionably across Shiro's shoulders, which was also not unusual, and kept eating with his left hand. 

Matt raised his eyebrows. Pidge smirked knowingly. Lance continued talking, oblivious. When Hunk noticed, his eyes widened briefly, but then he shrugged, and continued eating. 

Shiro blushed slightly, but his tiny smile said all Keith needed to know. 

If this was the new normal, Keith would take it any day. 


End file.
